of that wealth of worshiping endearments which has its home in full
richness nowhere but in the Irish heart.
“I find her bymeby it is ten o’clock,” Billy explained. “She ‘sleep out
yonder, ve’y tired–face wet, been cryin’, ‘spose; fetch her home, feed
her, she heap much hungry–go ‘sleep ‘gin.”
In her limitless gratitude the happy mother waived rank and hugged him
too, calling him “the angel of God in disguise.” And he probably was in
disguise if he was that kind of an official. He was dressed for the
character.
At half past one in the morning the procession burst into the village
singing, “When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” waving its lanterns and
swallowing the drinks that were brought out all along its course. It
concentrated at the tavern, and made a night of what was left of the
morning.
PART II
I
The next afternoon the village was electrified with an immense sensation.
A grave and dignified foreigner of distinguished bearing and appearance
had arrived at the tavern, and entered this formidable name upon the
register:
SHERLOCK HOLMES
The news buzzed from cabin to cabin, from claim to claim; tools were
dropped, and the town swarmed toward the center of interest. A man
passing out at the northern end of the village shouted it to Pat Riley,
whose claim was the next one to Flint Buckner’s. At that time Fetlock
Jones seemed to turn sick. He muttered to himself:
“Uncle Sherlock! The mean luck of it!–that he should come just when…”
He dropped into a reverie, and presently said to himself: “But what’s the
use of being afraid of him? Anybody that knows him the way I do knows he
can’t detect a crime except where he plans it all out beforehand and
arranges the clues and hires some fellow to commit it according to
instructions…. Now there ain’t going to be any clues this time–so,
what show has he got? None at all. No, sir; everything’s ready. If I
was to risk putting it off– No, I won’t run any risk like that. Flint
Buckner goes out of this world to-night, for sure.” Then another trouble
presented itself. “Uncle Sherlock ‘ll be wanting to talk home matters
with me this evening, and how am I going to get rid of him? for I’ve got
to be at my cabin a minute or two about eight o’clock.” This was an
awkward matter, and cost him much thought. But he found a way to beat
the difficulty. “We’ll go for a walk, and I’ll leave him in the road a
minute, so that he won’t see what it is I do: the best way to throw a
detective off the track, anyway, is to have him along when you are
preparing the thing. Yes, that’s the safest–I’ll take him with me.”
Meantime the road in front of the tavern was blocked with villagers
waiting and hoping for a glimpse of the great man. But he kept his room,
and did not appear. None but Ferguson, Jake Parker the blacksmith, and
Ham Sandwich had any luck. These enthusiastic admirers of the great
scientific detective hired the tavern’s detained-baggage lockup, which
looked into the detective’s room across a little alleyway ten or twelve
feet wide, ambushed themselves in it, and cut some peep-holes in the
window-blind. Mr. Holmes’s blinds were down; but by and by he raised
them. It gave the spies a hair-lifting but pleasurable thrill to find
themselves face to face with the Extraordinary Man who had filled the
world with the fame of his more than human ingenuities. There he sat
–not a myth, not a shadow, but real, alive, compact of substance, and
almost within touching distance with the hand.
“Look at that head!” said Ferguson, in an awed voice. “By gracious!
that’s a head!”
“You bet!” said the blacksmith, with deep reverence. “Look at his nose!
look at his eyes! Intellect? Just a battery of it!”
“And that paleness,” said Ham Sandwich. “Comes from thought–that’s what
it comes from. Hell! duffers like us don’t know what real thought is.”
“No more we don’t,” said Ferguson. “What we take for thinking is just
blubber-and-slush.”
“Right you are, Wells-Fargo. And look at that frown–that’s deep